The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued proposed rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) for the Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Foods. In those rules, the FDA has specified a number of training courses that will be required when final rules are issued.

TransCert and the Sanitary Cold Chain have developed courses designed to fulfill required training and is publishing this training to help carriers, drivers, shippers, and receivers of perishable foods—foreign and domestic—fulfill these training requirements early.

The “Driver Awareness of Temperature Controls" training course lasts about 1.3 hours and consists of two short modules. It fulfills FSMA requirements for food transportation focused on temperature controls during food transportation operations. The course is intended to provide a training platform covering issues that could impact perishable foods if temperature controls are not carefully monitored. A certificate is issued to each attendee. It is recommended that the certificates are filed as part of the documents required by the FDA during audits.

Module 1 of the driver awareness course lasts approximately 45 minutes, and Module 2 lasts about 30 minutes. Both modules are prerecorded and require a normal computer with browser and speakers. Slides should progress automatically throughout these presentations.

Completion of Module 1 and Module 2 are required before a certificate is sent to the trainee.

Course presenter is Dr. John Ryan, president of TransCert.com, who holds a PhD in research and statistical methods. He recently retired as administrator for the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture’s Quality Assurance Division, where he headed Hawaii’s commodity inspection, food safety certification, and measurement standards service groups. His latest book is “Guide to Food Safety During Transportation: Controls, Standards, and Practices,” offered by Elsevier Press.